One of the first decisions that every online entrepreneur has to make is which niche to focus on.
Before you pour tons of time, effort and money into any online endeavor, it’s extremely important that you scout out your options and select the one that offers you the best chance of succeeding.
A niche is a small segment of a market. There are specific qualities to look for in any niche where you are considering starting an online business.
Let’s take a look at four important things to look out for as you select a niche.
1. Potential Customers
If you’re going to dive into a niche, you better be sure that there are hungry customers ready to pay to solve their problems within the niche.
Niches come in large and small sizes. They range from extraordinarily narrow and specific to extremely large and encompassing.
While there is no single rule of thumb to apply when pinpointing a niche, it’s important to make sure that you select a niche where there are enough potential buyers to sustain your business. If you go too narrow, you risk appealing to an overly small group of people.
On the other hand, if you target a larger, nonspecific market, you run the risk of being drowned out by much larger and more entrenched competitors.
Here’s a good way to test any potential niche: go to a bookstore and peruse the magazine section. Look for magazines related to the niche you want to go into. If you find several magazines targeting your niche, that’s a good sign—it means there are enough customers in the niche to support each of those magazines, and it means there are advertisers willing to pay to get their products in front of the eyeballs of all those magazine readers.
If there are products, magazines and advertisers all clamoring to serve a certain niche, then it’s a good bet that there will be plenty of action to feed your business when you jump in.
2. Survey Your Competitors
Competitors are a very good thing. If you’re the only one in your given niche, that probably means that there isn’t much money to be had in your area of focus.
The existence of competitors tells you that other people are making the niche work.
That means you can figure out a way to make the niche work for you as well.
Of course, you’ll want to gauge your competitors to see what they’re doing and how well they’re doing it. The trick is to position yourself at a level of your niche where you have a few competitors, but you still have the ability to distinguish yourself and do something new, better and different.
If you can tell that a niche has potential buyers as well as a mix of competitors, you’re honing in on a potentially very good niche. But what else should you look for?
3. Keyword Research
Google’s keyword research tool can help you approach your niche from new angles.
Just head to the Google keyword tool and type in some of the main keywords that you would expect your potential customers to search for.
Then, survey the results you receive. You’re not only looking for the monthly search volume of your primary niche keywords; you’re also looking for other angles and ideas that you might not have thought of. Related keyword searches are a great way to jog your mind and inspire new angles of approach.
Notice, also, the level of the competition for the keywords you search for that relate to your niche. The holy grail of online search terms would be a heavily trafficked keyword that doesn’t have much competition.
Those are extraordinarily rare these days, though. Instead, accept a healthy amount of competition for the keywords that relate most specifically to your chosen niche.
Don’t underestimate the power or usefulness of the keyword tool to help you get a handle on where the action is in your niche.
4. Your Level of Interest
Depending on your business philosophy, you might want to begin with this point in how to go about identifying a viable niche.
If you don’t have passion for a given niche, then you’re going to be less likely to push through the inevitable challenges and roadblocks that crop up on the way to success online.
It really helps if you are interested in the niche you focus on.
So, as you narrow down potential niche candidates in relation to the other criteria mentioned above, keep your own level of interest in mind each step of the way.
Your ideal niche links your passions with the needs of a hungry population of potential clients. When you find that area of overlap, you’ve found your niche.
At that point, it’s all up to you to get busy.
Before you pour tons of time, effort and money into any online endeavor, it’s extremely important that you scout out your options and select the one that offers you the best chance of succeeding.
A niche is a small segment of a market. There are specific qualities to look for in any niche where you are considering starting an online business.
Let’s take a look at four important things to look out for as you select a niche.
1. Potential Customers
If you’re going to dive into a niche, you better be sure that there are hungry customers ready to pay to solve their problems within the niche.
Niches come in large and small sizes. They range from extraordinarily narrow and specific to extremely large and encompassing.
While there is no single rule of thumb to apply when pinpointing a niche, it’s important to make sure that you select a niche where there are enough potential buyers to sustain your business. If you go too narrow, you risk appealing to an overly small group of people.
On the other hand, if you target a larger, nonspecific market, you run the risk of being drowned out by much larger and more entrenched competitors.
Here’s a good way to test any potential niche: go to a bookstore and peruse the magazine section. Look for magazines related to the niche you want to go into. If you find several magazines targeting your niche, that’s a good sign—it means there are enough customers in the niche to support each of those magazines, and it means there are advertisers willing to pay to get their products in front of the eyeballs of all those magazine readers.
If there are products, magazines and advertisers all clamoring to serve a certain niche, then it’s a good bet that there will be plenty of action to feed your business when you jump in.
2. Survey Your Competitors
Competitors are a very good thing. If you’re the only one in your given niche, that probably means that there isn’t much money to be had in your area of focus.
The existence of competitors tells you that other people are making the niche work.
That means you can figure out a way to make the niche work for you as well.
Of course, you’ll want to gauge your competitors to see what they’re doing and how well they’re doing it. The trick is to position yourself at a level of your niche where you have a few competitors, but you still have the ability to distinguish yourself and do something new, better and different.
If you can tell that a niche has potential buyers as well as a mix of competitors, you’re honing in on a potentially very good niche. But what else should you look for?
3. Keyword Research
Google’s keyword research tool can help you approach your niche from new angles.
Just head to the Google keyword tool and type in some of the main keywords that you would expect your potential customers to search for.
Then, survey the results you receive. You’re not only looking for the monthly search volume of your primary niche keywords; you’re also looking for other angles and ideas that you might not have thought of. Related keyword searches are a great way to jog your mind and inspire new angles of approach.
Notice, also, the level of the competition for the keywords you search for that relate to your niche. The holy grail of online search terms would be a heavily trafficked keyword that doesn’t have much competition.
Those are extraordinarily rare these days, though. Instead, accept a healthy amount of competition for the keywords that relate most specifically to your chosen niche.
Don’t underestimate the power or usefulness of the keyword tool to help you get a handle on where the action is in your niche.
4. Your Level of Interest
Depending on your business philosophy, you might want to begin with this point in how to go about identifying a viable niche.
If you don’t have passion for a given niche, then you’re going to be less likely to push through the inevitable challenges and roadblocks that crop up on the way to success online.
It really helps if you are interested in the niche you focus on.
So, as you narrow down potential niche candidates in relation to the other criteria mentioned above, keep your own level of interest in mind each step of the way.
Your ideal niche links your passions with the needs of a hungry population of potential clients. When you find that area of overlap, you’ve found your niche.
At that point, it’s all up to you to get busy.
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